Osborn v. Haley
Osborn, an employee of a private contractor working for the Forest Service, sued Haley, a government employee in the Forest Service, for influencing Osborn’s employer to fire her. Osborn sued Haley in state district court. The United States, certifying that Haley had acted within the scope of his employment, invoked the Westfall Act, which grants immunity from torts to government employees acting within the scope of their employment. The United States removed the suit to federal district court and moved to substitute itself for Haley as the defendant, which would force the court to dismiss the suit because of the United States’s sovereign immunity. In district court, Osborn argued that Haley’s actions were outside of the scope of his employment, so the Westfall Act did not apply. The United States conceded that if Haley did what was alleged, it was outside the scope of his employment, but denied that Haley influenced Osborn’s firing.
The district court decided that it must accept Osborn’s allegations as true, denied the substitution, and remanded the suit to state district court for lack of jurisdiction. On appeal, the United States Court of Appeal for the Sixth Circuit held that the district court should not have accepted the allegations Osborn’s complaint as true; it remanded the case and ordered the district court to resolve the factual dispute. It also held that the Westfall Act creates a federal question that gives the district court jurisdiction, so the district court cannot remand to state court.
The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to both of those issues, and added a jurisdictional one. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d), a court of appeals cannot review a district court's remand of a case back to the state court from which it was previously removed. The Court will consider whether there should be an exception to this rule for the Westfall Act.
Questions Presented:
(1) Whether the Attorney General's decision under the Federal Employees Liability Reform and Tort Compensation Act of 1988 (Westfall Act), 28 U.S.C. 2679(d), to certify that "the defendant employee was acting within the scope of his office or employment at the time of the incident out of which the claim arose" (thus permitting the substitution of the United States for the employee as the defendant and the removal of the case to federal court) must accept the truth of the plaintiff's allegations?
(2) Whether the Westfall Act's provision that the "certification of the Attorney General shall conclusively establish scope of office or employment for purposes of removal" of the suit from state court, 28 U.S.C. 2679(d)(2), establishes that a district court is to retain jurisdiction over the removed suit, even if the court ultimately overturns the Attorney General's scope-of- employment certification for purposes of substituting the United States as the defendant?
(3) Whether the court of appeals had jurisdiction to review the district court's remand order, notwithstanding 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d)?
